The present invention relates generally to information access systems, and, more particularly, to information access systems used to retrieve information from across a communication network.
As more resources become available on communication networks such as the Internet, it has become increasingly more difficult to locate, manage, and integrate them. Many information retrieval clients such as the browsers by Netscape, Microsoft, and Mosaic have been introduced to make searching and retrieving information on the network more convenient and productive for end-users. Unfortunately, the closed architecture of such browsers has rendered the software design overloaded and monopolistic. Customizing the information retrieval process is difficult if not impossible.
For example, it would be advantageous to enable users to retrieve and search through old informationxe2x80x94even after the original information has evolved or disappeared from the original server. Many websites provide timely content such as news that changes on a regular basis. A user may wish to revisit a web page that the user saw many months earlier, or search for information the user recalls seeing on a web page that the user visited in the past. Client browsers typically only provide a rudimentary save feature and lack basic archiving functionality. Any such functionality should be provided by some specialized application which must be installed or integrated with each client. Otherwise, the user must either have the foresight to explicitly save pages he or she might be interested inxe2x80x94or must rely on the content administrator to provide some archive and search facility.
The present invention presents a system and method of providing information retrieved from a server from across a communication network that enables archiving services that do not interfere with existing components and protocols. The services enable users to retrieve and/or search for old information, even after such information has evolved or disappeared from the original server. The network resource naming (e.g. URL) format is extended to include archive directives that are intercepted and performed by a proxy server. The proxy interprets the archive directive and executes the specified archival command: e.g., adding the information to a storage repository, searching and retrieving the information from the storage repository, scheduling automatic archiving of specified server information, transparent archiving of information that is accessed by the client or of the client""s cache. The information can be easily indexed by a timestamp. Multiple proxy servers can collaborate permitting information to be archived in a distributed fashion. Embodiments of the present invention advantageously do not require changes to client or server software or communication protocols.